Author: marylowd

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Prodigy of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

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The cocky white cat pattered and quipped with the fuzzy spider-like alien for a while, posturing and positioning himself as a connoisseur who should be introduced to whatever finer things were usually kept tucked away for only the most discerning customers.  Eventually, the cat ended up ordering fairly standard drink bulbs for all four of his group, but Ensign Mike and Lys both found the banter that led up to it to be fairly entertaining.  Vossie’s displeased demeanor remained unchanged.  The rabbit was not impressed.

The drink bulbs contained a bright, thick turquoise fluid with a vaguely basil, mint, lemony flavor.  Ensign Melbourne’s pink nose wrinkled and his whiskers bristled every time he took a sip.  The cat clearly didn’t like the drink, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him from enjoying its novelty. Continue reading “Prodigy of the Wanderlust – Chapter 4: Drinks in Zero Gee”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Prodigy of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

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Glimmering shimmers of golden quantum energy tickled outward from Ensign Mike’s belly to the very tips of every mycelial strand of their bushy beard as they teleported from the Wanderlust to Spindle Reef.

Mike appeared on Spindle Reef, floating beside Vossie, Melbourne, and Lys in what seemed to be an out-of-the-way corner of a very large chamber with no artificial gravity.  The space in front of them was woven through with a complex interleaving of what seemed to be silken ropes and wooden bars that the varied inhabitants used to swing about from one location to another, and the space stretched so far out into the distance that Mike couldn’t see the other side. Continue reading “Prodigy of the Wanderlust – Chapter 3: The Bustling Station”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Prodigy of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, or skip ahead to the next chapter.

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As the Wanderlust approached the alien space station, the entire crew crowded onto the bridge, eagerly watching the viewscreen.  Captain Carroway grumbled quietly in her captain’s chair about disrupting sleep schedules and the importance of keeping to work shifts, but the grumpy Norwegian Forest cat knew better than to actually order any of her officers back to their barracks.  They’d just watch the approach remotely on computer pads in their barracks if she did.

Ensign Mike wished there was a way to assure the captain that events like this one — events that pulled the crew together — were worth far more in terms of morale than any disruption to their schedules would cost.  But Ensign Mike knew the captain wouldn’t listen to them.  They didn’t know how to get through to her.  Perhaps a carefully placed word in Cmdr. Chestnut’s pointed ears would work its way back to the fluffy feline. Continue reading “Prodigy of the Wanderlust – Chapter 2: A Chance for a Change of Pace”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Prodigy of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer to read in e-book or paperback form, learn more here.  Or if you want, skip ahead to the next chapter.

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Ensign Mike didn’t know how to be a person.  They had watched a lot of other people be people.  They had a literal computer brain full of literature and data about how other people managed to be people — often very badly.  But being able to look at someone else and tell that person was making poor choices wasn’t the same as knowing how to be a person yourself, and Ensign Mike felt more and more keenly aware of that difference.  But they didn’t know what to do about it.

To be fair, by one measure — a very reasonable measure — Ensign Mike was only about a year old.  So the toadstool-like being composed from a mass of mycelial material clustered around a computer implant tried not to be too hard on themself.  That seemed like the right thing to do.  It was what Ensign Mike would have told someone else who was like them…  But no one else was like them.  And no one else was telling Ensign Mike what to do.  At least, not about deep, psychological things like personhood.  At a practical level, Ensign Mike had superior officers aboard the Tri-Galactic Union starship Wanderlust ordering them around almost all the time, telling them to get out of the way or assist with tasks.  Mostly to get out of the way, even though there wasn’t any particular place for Ensign Mike to get out of the way to. Continue reading “Prodigy of the Wanderlust – Chapter 1: The Toadstool in the Room”